Dear friends: This “physicsrabbi” quarterly missive explores some positives that have emerged as a result of the ongoing pandemic.  In 2019, Beverly put many of our belongings into storage in Santa Fe and packed other items for shipment to New…

Dear Friends:This quarterly message to friends and family about my rabbinic exploits marks the fortieth such missive and ten years of electronic summaries. (As always, if you want to opt out of these messages, please just send me a note…

Dear Friends:I was never very skilled in languages and only learned as I prepared this message that “mignon” is the French word for “cute,” as in “filet mignon.” But what about the word “minyan?”  The Hebrew word “minyan” refers to…

Dear Friends:I am often struck by how meaningful, timely, and powerful our Jewish texts can be. Psalm 69:14 says, “May my prayer to You, G_d, come in a favorable time.”  The Talmud (B. Ber 7b-8a) asks what it means that…

Dear Friends: If ever there was a time to feel thankful for all of my many blessings, it is indeed now. Though we live on eastern Long Island and are immersed in a coronavirus hotspot, Beverly and I are healthy,…

In some of my recent quarterly rabbinic messages, I spoke about the experiences that Beverly and I have had out on Long Island these past months participating in services at a wide variety of synagogues.  My appreciation goes to the…

This past quarter has involved many changes, most notably a transition for Beverly and me from northern New Mexico to eastern Long Island, New York.  My science (mostly program development) is now based at Brookhaven National Laboratory where I often…

June 18th marked the anniversary of my first day at Los Alamos National (then Scientific) Laboratory; I arrived as a clueless graduate student many years (alright, decades!) ago. Over the course of my career at Los Alamos, I have been…

Going to the same synagogue week after week can be boring for many Jews, myself included. One creative solution exercised by a large number of co-religionists is to eschew synagogues altogether. As a rabbi, I am forbidden to recommend that…

Recently I had to obtain a new badge at Los Alamos National Laboratory, my primary employer, to replace one that was expiring after its normal five years. The clerk reviewed various statistics that are coded onto the chip – height,…